The Twentieth Man

by Tony Jones

  BANG bang BANG bang BANG bang …

  The drumbeat came from behind his bloodshot eyes, sickening and relentless. Strauss’s ‘Also sprach Zarathustra’, with the timpani section on a loop. It seemed to be generated by his pulse, which was at least a sign that he was still alive. But that fleeting thought brought no comfort.

  He kept his head still on the pillow, fearful that any movement might produce more of the ghastly pain. He’d been through this many times before, so he knew from experience that this sense of being locked-in would pass. Yet nothing seemed certain in this particular phase of the torment.

  How long before Brown sent over some heavies to break down the door? Would he even hear them over the infernal racket? BANG bang BANG bang BANG bang.

  There was a dull gleam in his peripheral vision, but he didn’t dare turn his head to confirm the suspicion. He searched his last conscious memories as the laser beam edged towards his genitals. How had 007 avoided fiery emasculation? Painfully, but with fine mimicry and no sign of a stutter, Moriarty spoke the immortal lines:

  ‘Do you expect me to talk?’

  ‘No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die.’

  Think, Tom, think …

  Gradually the gleaming object consolidated into a memory. It took the familiar shape of a bottle and eventually he visualised a single word in his native tongue.

  STOLICHNAYA.

  The fingers of his right hand twitched. With a superhuman effort, he raised his arm and swung it towards the object. When his fingertips brushed against glass, he opened his trembling hand to caress the thing. Grasping it by the neck, he brought it into his line of sight and was relieved to see an inch of viscous liquid sloshing in the bottom.

  When had the black curtain come down last night? The vodka seemed to stir up fractured memories. Glimpses of the lost night forced their way through the incessant drumbeat. He was cutting a swathe through the patrons of the Press Club like a dodgem car. Elbows repelled him, drinks were spilt. Angry faces. A woman at the bar was briefly entranced; then she was hostile, mouthing at him with fierce intensity. The sudden materialisation of a man—her boyfriend? A fist rattled his cheekbone. A view from the floor of legs dancing around him, faces leering. The lurch to the door. Streetlights and car beams. An impressionistic cab journey, his face smeared against the window, drooling …

  All of this swirled in the bottom of the bottle before Moriarty pulled it to his mouth and gulped down the contents, heedless of the fragrant burning in his throat and nostrils, until it steadied his hand and dulled the pain. Poison as antidote, a familiar thought.

  He threw the empty bottle aside, wiped his moistened lips.

  ‘N-Na Zdorovie,’ he said. A toast to no one.

  He looked down. The laser was about to scorch his balls. In a burst of energy, he swung his skinny legs out of the bed and staggered to the bathroom. In the mirror he saw a face like a painter’s palette. There was a shiner in shades of purple around his left eye; both eyes were red; his skin had a greenish pallor, darkened in places by stubble. His black hair stood up like the worn shoe brush in his old army footlocker.

  Would you trust this man with the nation’s security? He splashed water on his face, pushed wet hands back through his hair and addressed the creature in the mirror: ‘Stirred but n-not sh-shaken.’

  The disreputable fellow staring back did not reply, so he pulled the mirror open and rummaged in the shelves for aspirin. He threw a handful into his mouth and bent to suck water out of the tap, drinking and drinking with no thought of dignity. Gideon would never have chosen him as one of his Brave Three Hundred. But that was nothing to be concerned about. That’s not what spies do anyway.

  He was wondering whether to shave when the phone rang. He ignored it, but it just started again a moment later, and this time he snatched up the receiver.

  ‘M-Moriarty.’

  He listened without interruption as the urgent disembodied voice cut through to the functioning core of his brain. The Croats had gone rogue.

  ‘F-fuck me roan,’ he told the caller. ‘I’m on my way.’

  3.

  Anna Rosen spent almost an hour on the phone tracking down contacts while monitoring the radio coverage of the bombing. Then she rang McHugh at the office.

  ‘Hi, Peter, I’ve made some calls—’

  McHugh interrupted. ‘What are you hearing?’

  He sounded jittery and Anna registered something else in his voice. She knew that journalists were not the most admirable of creatures. Their first reaction when broken bodies and severed limbs were strewn through the city was not revulsion; it was excitement. She heard it in Peter’s voice now and was surprised to find that she felt the same impulse.

  ‘It’s hard to get on to people because of the panic,’ she explained. ‘But I’ve spoken to a few close to the Croats. Most are too scared to say much, but no one’s in any doubt who did it. I got through to Marjan Jurjevic and he straightaway blamed the Ustasha.’

  ‘Jurjevic?’ McHugh said, scrolling back through a long list of Balkan names in his head. ‘The whistleblower?’

  ‘That’s right, he’s in Melbourne. Marjan Jurjevic. He’s not a neutral commentator. A left-wing Croat who hates the Ustasha; he’s the one they keep trying to kill. They’ve branded him a traitor.’

  ‘I remember now—brave bastard.’

  ‘Yes, he is. Anyway, Marjan told me something very interesting. He got information last night, obviously before anyone had a clue what was about to happen in Sydney, that Ustasha terrorists had just hijacked a Scandinavian airliner in Stockholm. They’re demanding the release of the six Croats held in Swedish jails.’

  ‘What, the same fellows you’ve been looking into?’

  ‘The same ones. The men they want the Swedes to set free are all members of the cell that assassinated the Yugoslavian ambassador in Stockholm earlier this year. Now, remember what my Commonwealth Police source told me?’

  ‘That there’s an Australian connection?’

  ‘Exactly. The Swedes contacted our police months ago to pass on intelligence that the embassy killers have links to the Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood in Sydney.’

  ‘Okay,’ said McHugh, considering the implications. ‘So are you saying the Sydney bombs and this Swedish hijacking are connected?’

  ‘Not me; Marjan Jurjevic is. He’s convinced of it because of the timing. And listen to this. First thing this morning he rang Special Branch in Melbourne to warn them to keep watch up here because something could happen. Then the bombs went off in Sydney.’

  She could hear McHugh breathing heavily as he contemplated the new information.

  ‘Have you spoken again to your police source?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I only have his office phone and it just rings out. It’s Saturday of course, but I’ll bet he’s on his way to Sydney.’

  McHugh had heard enough. ‘Okay, Anna, this is what we’re going to do. I’m going to bring your program forward to Monday night. That gives you forty-eight hours. We’ll open a slot at 9 pm. We can’t sit on this material. Too many other journalists will be crawling all over this story and right now you’re ahead of them.’

  Anna bit her thumbnail. This was what McHugh was famously good at: backing his judgment, setting the agenda and trusting his people to do the job.

  ‘So, what do you think?’ McHugh pressed. ‘Can you do it?’

  ‘I can, Peter, but I’ll need to go down to Melbourne as soon as possible. The attorney-general has agreed to do a fresh interview with me tomorrow morning and I want to get Jurjevic on tape while I’m down there.’

  McHugh paused. He realised she had anticipated his decision. ‘You’ve spoken to Greenwood’s people already then, have you?’

  ‘Yeah, I figured you’d want me to do that.’

  ‘You’re right, well done. Let’s get you on a plane tonight. We’ll organise flights and a hotel for tonight, and book you a Comcar for tomorrow.’

  ‘Sure.’ She tried not to sound overwhe
lmed. ‘I can’t just do the government, though.’

  ‘Right, we’ll need the opposition. What about Cairns or Murphy?’

  ‘Yeah, Lionel Murphy, I reckon. As Greenwood’s shadow he’s the one who’s been asking him the toughest questions about Croat extremists. He’s all over this stuff.’

  ‘Do you know Murph?’

  ‘I’ve never met him, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘You’re in for a treat.’ McHugh chuckled. ‘And I know he’ll like you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ll find out.’

  ‘Come on, Peter, what are you getting at?’

  ‘He’s a very charming man, that’s all.’

  ‘Right,’ Anna said, her suspicions aroused. ‘I was going to interview him anyway. But he’s in Canberra so I’ll have to go there from Melbourne on the way back. What do you think?’

  ‘I think you’re going to have a busy weekend. Do you need help with the script?’

  ‘No, I can handle it. I’ll need someone to get dubs for me of the actuality from the bombings.’

  ‘I’ll get that done, transcribed and left on your desk while you’re on the road.’

  ‘All right. I’ll top and tail it with news of the bombings, and weave Greenwood and Murphy into it.’

  ‘Anna?’

  ‘Seriously, I can do it. Sunday will be an all-nighter, but I’m up for it. We can go through the changes on Monday morning.’

  ‘Good girl. Off you go then.’

  Anna wanted to tell him not to patronise her, but she held her tongue.

  By 5 pm Al Sharp was alongside the prime minister at the site of the first bombing as they picked their way through the rubble of the Adriatic Trade and Travel Centre. Half-blinded by the spotlights from a bank of cameras, Sharp almost stumbled.

  Then the media scrum shuffled backwards and questions were shouted from it: ‘Prime Minister, do you know who did it? Do the police have any leads? Did Yugoslav terrorists do this?’

  Prime Minister McMahon paused and blinked at the lights, squinting as he gave his prepared answer: ‘Ah, it’s, ah, too early to say, ah, at this time.’

  Sharp, drifting out of the camera’s gaze, rolled his eyes as he listened to Billy McMahon’s expressionless voice. The man was deaf as a post and wore hearing aids in both of his outsized ears.

  Sharp might have had sympathy, even a degree of admiration, for someone who had overcome such a handicap to lead the nation, but having now met him for the first time he was inclined to agree with the popular view that McMahon was a supercilious and treacherous little prick. He found himself ruminating on the coup McMahon had successfully orchestrated against his predecessor. He had been on a trip to Italy, on the Isle of Capri no less, when he made the critical telephone calls to organise the numbers against Gorton. Gough Whitlam later nailed McMahon in parliament, dubbing the new prime minister ‘Tiberius with a telephone’.

  To that small piece of recent political history Al Sharp now added his own dim assessment. After his admittedly short briefing, Sharp was angered to have the prime minister reject his advice out of hand. ‘I most certainly will not be pointing the finger at our Croatian friends. That’s an outrageous suggestion,’ McMahon had droned in his infuriating monotone. ‘Tito’s goons are everywhere. This is most likely the work of an agent provocateur.’

  As the press conference continued, Sharp noted that McMahon was not foolish enough to make that case publicly. The prime minister stuck to formulaic non-answers, mumbling condolences to the injured people and their families. He stumbled over details, such as the number of casualties and what had happened to them, and delivered the stock words of praise to police, emergency workers and doctors.

  As McMahon droned on, Sharp spotted a spectral figure in dark sunglasses off to one side. He made his way over to the man.

  ‘Tom,’ he whispered, leaning in close. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here.’

  ‘All hands to the p-p-pump, lad.’

  Sharp reeled back. ‘Christ, you smell like a brewery. Don’t get close to the PM, whatever you do.’

  Moriarty cocked his head and grinned. ‘Fucking little f-fairy—that’s the last thing I’d do.’

  ‘So, what are you up to?’

  ‘What do you think, Al?’

  ‘You tell me. I’m here to advise the local coppers.’

  ‘Good luck with that.’ Moriarty smiled. ‘Like teaching ch-chimps to write poetry.’

  Sharp couldn’t see Moriarty’s eyes through the dark glasses. ‘Late in the day for sunnies, isn’t it? You look like the manager of a rock band.’

  ‘Incognito.’

  ‘You still haven’t said what you’re doing here.’

  ‘Intelligence gathering, son, n-nothing for you to worry about. You’re not in the loop, now that you’ve departed the f-fold.’

  ‘Don’t put up those walls.’ Sharp sighed. ‘This is too big for secrets.’

  Moriarty moved in close, belching stale vodka fumes. ‘The bigger it is, the b-bigger the secrets. You should remember that much from your time at the Organisation.’ Moriarty paused, before adding, ‘I’m here to c-catch up with an old mate.’

  ‘How can I contact you?’

  ‘You can’t.’ Moriarty straightened and stepped back. ‘You staying at that same shithole the f-feds use?’

  Sharp nodded. ‘And I’ll be working out of CIB.’

  ‘See how things g-go. I m-might get in touch with you there.’ The stuttering spy tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Better get back to the f-fairy queen. His detail’s looking nervous.’

  Sharp turned and saw the protective services team manoeuvring the prime minister out to the waiting limousine. Tom Moriarty slipped away.

  *

  Later that evening the bomber sat alone, watching the news on television. All the footage was devoted to the chaotic aftermath. Police on megaphones, warning people to stay off the streets. Sirens wailing. Ambulances tearing past; the destroyed buildings and their shattered interiors; firemen and police searching through the rubble for casualties; people spilling on to the street from the Capitol Theatre, which had been evacuated while police sniffer dogs searched for the other bomb.

  A reporter, talking to the camera, said that a man with a foreign accent had called the Sydney Morning Herald after the explosions and warned that if the ‘Yugoslavian situation’ did not improve in the next week two hospitals and Central Station would go up next.

  At this news the bomber stirred, puzzled. Who had made that threat? It was mad. But, then again, who was he to accuse someone else of madness, having brought the world down on their heads?

  There was footage of the prime minister inspecting the site with Commonwealth Police. The floppy-eared pixie was wearing a fawn suit and a dark skivvy as he stepped daintily through the wreckage. The bomber grimaced. How was such a creature chosen to lead a country?

  A news anchor read out the casualty list. Two victims still in hospital in a critical condition. Doctors had amputated the leg of one of them. Sixteen taken to Sydney Hospital and St Vincent’s with serious injuries, cuts and burns.

  The bomber poured another large brandy and gulped it down. There was none of the elation he expected. He felt hollowed out, as if someone had reached into his chest and scooped out his soul. He wondered if his father had felt like this after one of his missions. He thought about his brother.

  The telephone rang. He waited for it to stop. He snatched at his jacket and pulled out from one of the pockets the tourist pamphlet he had retained, opening it at a colour picture of Zagreb. He had never been to the city; he was sure he would never see it. The pamphlet shook in his hands.

  The telephone rang again. He left it. It rang and rang.

  4.

  On Sunday afternoon Anna Rosen boarded the TAA flight from Melbourne to Canberra with a growing sense of unease. She had completed her work in the southern capital and her interviews had yielded nothing new. She had known this might be the outcome. She c
ould have almost written the transcripts without the interviews. Marjan Jurjevic had virtually repeated word for word what he had told her on the phone. No surprise there. It was her encounter with Attorney-General Ivor Greenwood that had set her on edge, and not because of anything he’d said on tape.

  There had been a strangeness about the encounter from the moment she arrived at the senator’s office. His staff had treated her with barely disguised contempt. They put her in a small conference room, told her to set up her recording equipment and then made her wait for almost an hour. Anna assumed their hostility was payback for her first interview with the attorney-general. It hadn’t gone well, especially when she had accused him and his predecessors of importing war criminals with whitewashed backgrounds into Australia.

  When Ivor Greenwood was finally ushered into the room, straight-backed as usual, clear-eyed and immaculate, not a hair out of place, he sat without speaking. He remained silent while his acerbic press secretary explained that Anna had precisely fifteen minutes with the attorney-general before he had to go to an important meeting. Anna knew that his enemies referred to him as ‘Ivor the Terrible’ and assumed she was about to learn why. She was wrong about that.

  Greenwood answered her questions with a polite, if cold, formality. With regards to the bombings he displayed a legalistic determination to say nothing at all about the likely culprits, as she had expected. When she cross-examined him, he repeatedly claimed, but without rancour, that nothing could be deduced until the police had completed their investigations.

  She decided that this was the performance of a man unfazed by something as trivial as a few bombs being set off in the centre of the nation’s largest city. Nothing about yesterday’s events would cause him to alter his previous statements that there was no evidence of an organised Croatian terrorist threat.

  Only when Anna thanked him and turned off the tape recorder did something interesting happen. Instead of rushing off to his appointment, Greenwood put his elbows on the table and leaned in closer, indicating he had something to say.